Playing with Fire (Judah Black Novels Book 4)

by E. A. Copen

  I carry a tape measure on my key ring for occasions like that. Magickal energies are stronger in the center of things. I’d need to stand in the center of the gas pumping platform to have any chance of locating that residual energy. Finding the mathematical center meant taking measurements. But I was in a loaner car with loaner keys, meaning I didn’t have my tape measurer. I had to wing it.

  What looked like the center of the platform placed me between two columns that would have divided the station’s two gas pumps. I squeezed in between them and tried to triangulate the distance using my fingers to make sure it was the mathematical center. If it wasn’t, it was as close as I was going to get. Then, I closed my eyes, extended my hands and focused.

  Reading energies is more difficult in some places than others. Homes, for example, are easy enough to read that I barely have to try. Anyone can do it. Walk into a happy home, and you know it. Stand in the center of a house in turmoil, and you’ll feel the broken or violent energies all around. Public places are harder because of the way people come and go. When someone passes through a space, they leave behind a temporary energy like a footprint that fades with time. As days and months pass, though, that energy builds up and a place can take on its own energy based on what passes through.

  The Four Corners Concho station had been derelict and abandoned for years. The only people who came out there were people up to no good. Vandals, underage kids with a case of daddy’s beer… Anyone who didn’t want to have an audience. An energy of secrecy, lies, pain and loneliness lurked like a whisper in a canyon. With no walls to contain it, the energy dissipated out in all directions, making it weak, but there was no mistaking that had become the dominant energy of the place. It appeared to me in dark hues of blue and green fog, drifting lazily around the place.

  The weak energy, however, had been overridden by something stronger, two energies at war with one another. No, not war. That wasn’t the right word. This didn’t have the violent, conquering feel of battle. It felt more like a hunt. The energy of a predator, large, black with jagged edges and the tiniest spark of iron blue hung as a pale shadow near the pole next to me, not far from the bleached area.

  I turned and searched for some sign, anything that might tell me more. There was nothing on the pole that I could see. No splash of blood or other fluids that were visible. The only thing I saw was an old plastic bin, the kind that used to hold windshield washer fluid and a squeegee. Dirt and some unidentifiable sticky substance caked the edges of it. It was perhaps the one thing in the area that hadn’t been thoroughly scrubbed. Still, I couldn’t see anything on the outside. Whatever I was sensing might be on the inside.

  My nose wrinkled and my stomach protested at the idea of sticking my hand in there. I had no idea what might be inside.

  “The things I do for this job,” I muttered and rolled up my sleeve.

  It was full of what I hoped was slimy water, though the slight odor of stale beer or old piss—I couldn’t tell which—made me think otherwise. I gagged, fought back vomit and felt around in the bin for something solid. My fingers brushed the bottom and something tiny but rock hard. At first, I passed it over thinking it was just a rock, but in the absence of anything else, I pulled it out and held it to the light coming from the headlights.

  “A tooth?” I said, turning it over.

  More specifically, it was a human incisor. Well, at least it wasn’t a vampire incisor, since it didn’t look like a fang, though I supposed it didn’t have to be human. Nevertheless, it was a body part and nothing was better for a basic tracking spell than a piece of the person you want to track. If this was Reed’s tooth, I’d hit gold.

  Pain lit up my ribs out of nowhere, the momentum of an unseen strike sending me sprawling backward. My only thought as I flew back was that I needed to hold onto that tooth. I closed my hand around it and, when I landed, curled up over it. Lights of pain flashed in my vision and water threatened in the corners of my eyes. Whoever had hit me, got me good.

  “You were told to leave it alone, Judah.”

  I blinked tears away as a tall figure in a hat and long coat stepped between me and the headlights. Abe? What the hell was he doing here and how had he gotten the drop on me?

  Abe advanced on where I lay prone and adjusted the hem of his gloves, tugging them tighter. “The moment you showed up, I knew that you would not. Stubbornness is both a strength and a weakness in your case, Judah. It would be to your advantage to learn to know when to quit.”

  I sat up and scooted back, pocketing the tooth as soon as I got the chance. My ribs screamed in pain as I dragged myself backward. “Why don’t you really tell me why you came to Paint Rock, Abe? It wasn’t to evaluate my performance and check up on the Vanguard, was it?”

  Abe stopped several paces away. “Contrary to what you may believe, I told you to stay out of this for your own protection. Sometimes only having a piece of the puzzle is more dangerous than having the whole thing.”

  “Spare me the philosophical bullshit.” I staggered to my feet, clutching the aching spot in my ribs. “You can’t hit me and then pretend to be my friend.”

  “I am not here to be your friend, Judah. I am not here to be your partner. I have... ulterior motives.”

  “Kinda guessed that.”

  His hands flexed. “It is not what you think.”

  “I know about the BSI agents you guys were hiding in Doc’s clinic,” I shouted. “I know Han is involved. I know Reed is connected. I know everything!”

  “You know nothing. Your ignorance is why they have left you alive. However…” Abe removed his hat and tossed it off to the side like a Frisbee. “Sometimes the only way to teach a stubborn dog to heel is to beat it into submission. If you will not leave this alone, then I have no choice but to incapacitate you to prevent you from throwing your life away.”

  I tightened my hands into fists. I’d seen Abe fight. As a half-vampire, he was strong. His sucker punch to the ribs earlier had proven he could do the damage. But I could take it. I had magick aplenty and I’d been training with Creven. I had moves he hadn’t seen yet. On an even playing field, I was pretty sure I could take Abe.

  But we might not be on an even playing field. Vampires got stronger after dark. I didn’t know how much vampire Abe had retained, but I knew even if I walked away from this fight, I’d take a beating that’d slow me down.

  I licked my lips and tried to gauge the distance to the car. If I could just get to it, I could get away.

  I stepped to the side as if to circle Abe, but he didn’t take the bait. He charged me, moving so fast I didn’t have time to get my shield up. His left fist came in hard against my ribs, just opposite his earlier strike. The punch pushed air out of my lungs and I gasped as heat and pain flooded my ribcage. My brain went blank as it got to the more important task of processing the pain and preventing more. Instinctually, I curled up, which might have been the worst thing I could do. He brought a fist down to strike the back of my head, which would have brought a quick end to the fight. If I’d stayed put, that is.

  I dropped and tackled his legs, taking them from under him.

  I’m not particularly strong without magick to back me up, nor am I an expert martial artist or trained brawler. I picked up some stuff in the academy that had seen more use recently fighting Creven, but Abe wasn’t like Creven. Abe was like the other guys at the academy: bigger, stronger, taller than me. Take the legs out from under a guy that relies on upper body strength to get the fighting done, and take away the advantage. On the ground, I had knees, elbows, fists and teeth if nothing else, and he’d be forced on the defensive. In theory.

  That had been a messy tackle, though, and done in a panic, which meant I threw myself along with him. Hitting the ground jarred us both, but he wasn’t suffering from some bruised ribs. Abe kicked at me, a boot making contact with my side below the ribs. I sat up and scrambled to try and put myself over top of him, but there were too many limbs flying at me. I got in one good punch to his
nose before the side of his palm struck the side of my head and the world spun. Dizziness and a flash of nausea overtook me, making it easy for Abe to push me off him.

  I stumbled to the side and blindly tried to crawl away, fighting the ever-worsening pounding in my head. The headlights blinded me in hazy streaks of white and I suddenly remembered the car. Get to the car. Escape. I crawled toward it.

  Abe’s foot came down on my outstretched hand, the finer bones of my palm crunching under his weight. I screamed in pain, feeling the bones creak and shift.

  “I am sorry for this,” he said and removed his foot. His long fingers curled around the back of my shirt and he dragged me back away from the car, away from safety.

  “Sorry my ass! Why are you doing this?”

  “Bruises heal,” Abe said and dropped me on the far side of the pumps face-down. He lowered one knee on the center of my back before I could crawl away. No matter how much I squirmed or fought, I couldn’t get free. Whatever he’d done to my head ensured I could barely move. “Broken bones mend. Any damage to the body can be repaired, but death… Death is the point of no return. There is no coming back if they kill you. And you must live. Do you understand me, Judah? You. Must. Live.” Abe grabbed my right arm with both hands, placing one at the elbow and the other on the wrist.

  “Who are they, Abe? Who’s out there?”

  Abe paused, something in his posture changing. I thought maybe he wanted to tell me, but how could that make sense? He’d just spent the last few minutes beating the hell out of me for not backing off. Whoever they were, Abe was clearly on their side.

  “I am truly sorry,” Abe said and twisted. One hand turned forward and the other back, wrenching my arm along with them either way. With all the strength of a vampire behind the movement, both bones in my forearm snapped.

  I howled in pain and cursed.

  Abe let me go and stood. “Hate me if you want, Judah. I would not blame you. But you must know there are some truths better left uncovered.”

  I tried to breathe through the sudden pain. Broken bones are no small thing. You don’t just shrug them off. When Abe stepped back from me, I blinked through the tears and met his eyes. Rage shook in my voice as I asked, “Why? Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Because if I did not stop you, not only do I believe you would uncover the truth, but my loyalty would be in question. I cannot allow that.” He raised his head, looking out over the desert before rising. The soles of his boots scraped as he walked to collect his hat, dusted it off and placed it over his head.

  Abe walked back to the car I’d left running and climbed in. The engine roared and the tires spun, sending a wave of dry dirt spraying over me before he tore out onto the road, headed back toward Paint Rock.

  My right arm throbbed, useless, but my left was still mobile. I used it to reach into my right pocket with shaky hands and draw out the phone Espinoza had tossed to me. Abe had said he’d call me a squad, but I couldn’t trust anything he said right now. I’d have to find my own help. It took me three tries to punch in Tindall’s number. He picked up on the fourth ring, sounding exhausted. “Sheriff here.”

  “Tindall?” My voice cracked and my jaw quivered.

  There was a momentary pause before Tindall said in a more alert tone, “Where are you?”

  “Four Corners.”

  “How bad is it?”

  The pounding in my head suddenly got worse. My stomach turned and I rolled over, retching and expelling everything in my stomach. The move accidentally put weight on my broken arm and I choked.

  “Stay where you are,” Tindall’s voice shouted from the phone I’d dropped. “I’m sending help.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I don’t know how long I fought not to lose consciousness. Whatever Abe had done to my head had been more of a finishing blow than I realized. The broken bones in my arm throbbed, making the nausea worse. Sitting up made it worse, too, so I lay on my back on the concrete floor of a derelict gas station, staring up at the stars.

  There’s nowhere on Earth where you can see stars quite like the Texas desert. I was still close enough to Eden that the city lights colored the far edge of the sky, but the deep, palpable blanket of midnight blue still held its dominance over the sky. Tiny sapphires shimmered against light on either side of a dark cut in the sky, an arm of the galaxy millions of lightyears away. Somewhere out there, it made sense that my partner had just beat the shit out of me. It made sense that the one reliable and stable person in Paint Rock had flipped his lid and started trying to kill people. Mara joining a cult, Ed getting arrested, cats and dogs getting along, all of it made sense somewhere out there. How high would I have to climb to get enough perspective to understand? Could I get the full picture from a mountaintop? An airplane? Maybe Mars would be far enough. Where I lay on the ground listening to an owl hoot and an engine rattle in the distance, nothing made sense.

  If I could just close my eyes, I could think through it. Maybe a little sleep. I hadn’t slept in forever. As late as it was, I should have been curled up in bed next to Sal, listening to him snore gently.

  Muffled voices and movement in my arm made open my eyes. I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep, but I must have blanked. The sky seemed lighter and the throbbing pain in my broken arm had turned into an adrenaline-fueled numbness that spread up to my elbow. Two shapes bent over me, one of them responsible for the sudden return of pain in my forearm.

  “I thought you said you were watching her?”

  Sal? What was he doing here? Where was Tindall?

  “You know how good she’s gotten at dodging us. The last time we spoke, you said she was with that half-vampire. She had an escort.” The second voice belonged to Bran.

  Sal’s grip tightened on my arm. I tried to say, “Ouch,” but it came out more as a pained grunt.

  Sal tightened his grip and forced my arm to straighten out, resulting in another hiss of pain from me. “Quit trying to move it, Judah. It’s a good fracture. How’d you manage it this time? Jesus, you’re out in the middle of nowhere with no one around and you still somehow manage to get hurt. Who did this to you?”

  My head spun with pain as a faint pulse of magick spread from his hands into my arm. His healing magick felt weaker than normal, maybe because he was still recovering himself.

  I wanted to tell him it was Abe, but I was afraid to. More than afraid, maybe. Ashamed. Here I was, someone who had gone up against ice giants, demons, and zombies. I’d faced down my own death and come out on top. But I had let Abe mop the floor with me. I should have fought harder, pushed more. If I hadn’t hesitated, if he hadn’t hit first, maybe… Whatever I wanted to think was lost in a sea of agony as Sal tightened his grip on my arm even further.

  “Perhaps we should let her recover before we drown her in questions, brother.”

  I cringed and squeezed my eyes shut. Beads of moisture trailed down my cheeks. “Tindall?”

  Bran’s hand came down gently on my back, steadying me in my seated position. “He’s the one who called us. If he’d come himself, it would put him in an awkward position.”

  Of course. He’d have to call a squad and hospitals asked a lot of questions. There would be an investigation, inquiries. It would go on record that I’d been injured and I’d have to make a report on how it had happened. That’d be bad for me because it would draw BSI’s attention. Tindall couldn’t have known that, though. He might have guessed something was going on because I had called him instead of an ambulance, but he also might have been called somewhere else. Being sheriff meant constantly being pulled in all directions. Poor guy.

  “I don’t know that I can fully repair the broken bone.” Sweat trailed down the side of Sal’s face and neck and his forehead wrinkled in concentration. Setting a broken bone and mending it was normally child’s play for him. “I can get it started, but it’s still going to hurt like a bitch and be vulnerable.”

  I flashed a goofy smile. “Patch me up, doc. Send me back out.�
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  Something dark flashed behind his eyes, a memory maybe. He shook his head and the look was gone. “You still need to tell me who did this. I’m not letting that go. Now, hold still. This is really going to hurt.”

  Setting a broken bone is never fun, but doing it with no medical gear in the middle of nowhere is definitely not ideal. Sal’s healing powers could help mend enough bone together that it’d heal the rest of the way on its own in time, but he couldn’t do anything for the pain, which meant he hadn’t lied. It was going to hurt. A lot.

  He had Bran stand behind me, his hands gripping my upper arm tight, tugging it away from my shoulder. Once Sal moved things back in place, that would keep me from jerking away on instinct, which would complicate everything.

  Sal grabbed my arm with both hands an inch or so below the break and looked straight at me. “Do it on three?”

  I winced at the pain. The fog in my head meant I could barely remember what we were about to do. I tired to focus on it, but I couldn’t do that and talk at the same time so I just nodded. The move left me blinking away stars and double vision.

  “On three. One, two…”

  He did it on two, the bastard.

  Sal gave my arm a good pull. Bones shifted. Something snapped inside my arm like a rubber band. I ground my teeth and held in the scream until I was afraid I’d break my teeth. When it finally came out, it was more a roar of anger than pain.

  Sal finally released my arm and probed the breaks gently with a finger. It throbbed, the pain threatening to overtake the pounding in my head again. “Move a muscle and we’ll have to do it again. Hold. Still.”

  He placed his palm over the breaks and the other under, as if my arm were sandwich meat and his hands bread. Warmth spread out over my skin under his hands. It wasn’t hot like fire, but rather like the sun on a warm summer day. A comforting feeling at war with the pain. Inside my arm, it felt like someone was jackhammering at the bones rather than putting them back together. It lasted a minute, maybe two, before he pulled his hand away and held one out to Bran. Bran slapped a men’s magazine into Sal’s waiting palm.